Author: Derek Mills
Hocking Hills Orchard
14435 Nickel Plate Rd
Logan, Ohio 43138
hockinghillsorchard.com although horribly out of date!
fourseasonscabinrental.com for a great vacation stay in a cabin in the woods!
travelingchapel.com getting married in the Hocking Hills!
Hocking Hills Orchard is located at our Four Seasons Cabins in the beautiful Hocking Hills of SE Ohio. We currently grow over 1,200 varieties of apples, 100 or so varieties of pears, a 100 or so varieties of grapes and a smattering of other mixed fruits. I say “we” but my wife would say to not include her in my insanity of grafting, growing, pruning and harvesting fruit from so many trees and vines <grin>!
Out of the 1,200 apple varieties I grow, about 200 are red-Lleshed ones and 200 are hard cider ones. I have written a few articles on red Lleshed apples which are some of my favorite ones to grow but this will be about the results of our apple tasting event at our place this past September.
Typically the last Sunday in September we have an apple tasting event at our place. I keep it to around 40 varieties, give or take a couple, because I have learned over the years that much more than 40 varieties will cause someone’s eyes to glaze over! I ask people to rate the apples 1 to 5, with 1 being so delicious you could eat it all the time and 5 being so awful you would tear the tree out of the ground if you grew it or at the very least never eat it again.
Most of the apples are heirloom or unusual varieties. And if there is a new variety that is bearing fruit for the Lirst time and I get at least a half dozen or so apples that ripen, I include those in the tasting. For years we went to one of our local state parks and had our apple tasting as part of an event for the park. People would sample apples and of course we had fruit for sale! The last couple of years I decided to have the event at our orchard: why drag all those apples to a park? It is like in the movie Field of Dreams where the line goes, “if you build it, they will come.”
It has always been advertised by word of mouth until this year when I decided to make an event on Facebook. Wow! What a reach that platform has! We went to Grand Teton National Park the Lirst week in September and I did not check Facebook for a few days and when I did there were almost 600 people going to or interested in my apple tasting!
Now, normally this would be a great thing but this was being held beside our house at the beginning of the orchard, and that many people would not be a good thing. So I limited it to the first 60 that said they were coming. Next year I am thinking about having it in a different location that can accommodate hundreds of people—just not outside my kitchen window.
From previous apple tastings, I know there are certain varieties that always score high:
- Alaska
- Cornish Aromatic
- Esopus Spitzenberg
- Golden Sweet
- Mutsu
- WestSiled Seek-No-Further
- and others.
But this year there was one that really surprised me with the high scores it received and that was Winter Sweet Paradise. This variety was first mentioned growing in Pennsylvania around 1842. It ripens mid to late September and is a medium to large apple with a red blush. Flesh is white, tender, juicy and sweet. Some of the comments were “best tasting apple I have ever had” and “delicious”.
Some other different ones we had at our apple tasting this year included Frostbite, Snowsweet, Hawaii, Pitmaston Pine Apple and a few Baker’s Delicious.
Frostbite I really liked; it does have an unusual flavor, but that is why it appeals to me.
Frostbite is described by the University of Minnesota where it was developed as: “this apple packs a punch. It’s almost tangy, very sweet, and juicy. Biting into a Frostbite™ is almost like biting into a piece of sugarcane.
Savoring its juice tastes almost like molasses melting in your mouth.”
SnowSweet is very sweet, and is another variety developed by the University of Minnesota.
Released 1970, it is a Sharon x Connell Red cross.
As its name implies, SnowSweet has bright white Llesh, which is slow to oxidize when cut. It is sweet, with low acidity
Hawaii was a huge hit couple of years ago and continued that this year.
Hawaii was released in 1945 and is a Golden Delicious x Gravenstein cross. Gourmet dessert apple with a flavor and aroma like pineapple. Large, yellow fruit with light pinkish orange striping gives overall orange appearance. Exceptionally sweet flavor is largely influenced by Gravenstein.
Pitmaston Pine Apple was very popular this year. We had a carload of people come to pick apples and they brought family with them that was visiting from the UK. When I told them they had good timing because this variety was ripening, they were thrilled to find a taste of England in Ohio. This variety was first mentioned in England around 1785. The medium-sized fruits are a golden color with firm, juicy flesh. The flavor is variously described as honeyed, nutty, musky, sweet and rich. Golden Pippin x cross.
Baker’s Delicious is a variety from Wales first mentioned in 1932. It is a medium-sized pale golden fruit, often russeted, fully streaked with red, richly flavored, juicy cream flesh that ripens in September
